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July 2, 2014

TransForm e-news: July 2, 2014Your monthly pass to world-class public transportation and more wonderful, walkable communities.

As if we needed another reason to create more walkable places with excellent transportation choices…

A new report by the World Bank shows that having great transportation choices is a valuable investment in more ways than one. The report analyzed what would happen if the world’s five largest economies, including the United States, spent more money on improving public transit and investing in cleaner transportation to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. They found that not only would the benefits of these investments far outweigh their initial cost, they would actually increase these country’s economic growth by trillions of dollars.

This spring, as legislators and Governor Brown debated how to spend billions of dollars from the state’s new cap-and-trade program to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, TransForm and our allies in the Sustainable Communities for All Coalition continued to push for investments in public transportation, affordable housing, conservation, and sustainable communities programs – and our efforts really paid off!

The Legislature approved the final spending plan on June 15th – and in the next year alone it directs $50 million for public transportation and $130 million for build affordable homes and sustainable communities. This amount should more than quadruple next year, and continue to grow through 2020.

The impact of this funding could be huge. Based on our recent report, if California invests just 10% of cap-and-trade money to build 15,000 affordable units over 3 years, we could eliminate enough pollution to equal 105,000,000 fewer miles driven on our roads!

Combined with other great aspects of this program, such as low-income energy efficiency programs, California is poised to be our nation’s leader in reducing greenhouse gas emissions and doing it in a way that lifts up disadvantaged communities. As our blog details, this spending plan is just the beginning.

BART’s June 12 decision to set the fare for the Oakland Airport Connector (OAC) at $6 is great news for all BART riders. Because the OAC project turned out to be much more costly than BART had originally budgeted, a lower fare for airport passengers would have unfairly pushed the project’s high price tag onto everyday BART riders.

That’s why we urged the BART Board to charge airport passengers their fair share to ride to the Oakland Airport. Charging a $6 fare to people who ride BART to the Oakland Airport ensures that core BART service will stay affordable for the more than 400,000 people who ride it every day.

There’s a lot to love about our new website. It has a responsive design, which means it looks great no matter what kind of device you’re on. Our blog TransForum is now featured and integrated throughout the entire site – and will be the hub for the latest on our work. From gorgeous photos to crisp prose, we hope you find the site more engaging and inspiring. Check it out and let us know what you think!

Do you dabble in design or illustration? Then you’ll want to get in on this chance to get creative and help us design a special edition TransForm t-shirt. Submissions are due by July 15 at 5:00 p.m., and the winning designer will win $250 and 2 t-shirts. Learn more about the contest and how to enter.

Mark your calendar for one of these hearings to get the latest on this revolutionary Bus Rapid Transit project coming to Oakland. To learn more, please see our East Bay BRT website or contact Geoffrey Johnson.

Learn about evaluating Active Transportation funding and Complete Streets policies in the Bay Area. Swati Pande, Research Associate, Safe Transportation Research & Education Center (SafeTREC), UC Berkeley, will present on the findings of a project she conducted with the Safe Routes to School National Partnership.